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When they started spending time together, Alex had no idea of what he was doing.
Thinking back at it, Jack probably did all along.
Jack was basically the new kid and, as expected he spent his first days with the national team with his teammates from Sassuolo, or he tried at least.
Locatelli for starters seemed to forget that there were people in the team other than Pessina; as for Berardi, Alex always thought he was a weird guy. Before Euro 2020 he knew as much as anyone else about Domenico Berardi, young promise of Italian football, neither that young anymore, not that promising, Alex really didn’t know what happened then, the only thing he knew was that Jack really looked up to him.
Like a lot.
Wherever the oldest would go, the youngest would quietly follow him. Alex didn’t really see Mimmo as the mentor type of guy, but he thought it was nice of him to keep Jack around.
After the first couple of days, however, Giacomo seemed to have gotten along with everyone in Coverciano, and managed to spend some time with each of his teammates, even with the ever-busy Locatelli.
Everyone other than Alex.
He was a timid guy himself, so he wasn’t probably the easiest person to approach, that’s why he was caught off guard by Jack’s request.
It was during a break, right after lunch, most of the others were resting, someone was playing ping pong outside, he was sitting alone on a sofa outside shielded from the sun by the porch.
“Can you listen to me while I repeat?”
Alex raised his eyes from his phone, finding Jack’s small frame standing in front of him holding a huge book and some markers; he absolutely didn’t look like a football player, there with the sun on his face, holding a book that looked too big for him, wearing a white shirt and shorts, it was the first time Alex realized how out of place he looked among them, he would later realized how perfectly in his element he was every time he stepped on the field.
“So?”
He wished he could blame the heat for his sudden change of complexion after having been caught staring.
“Yeah. I’m not sure I can help you though. I don’t really know much about… what- what are you studying?”
Alex had never felt so awkward.
“It’s fine, I just need someone to repeat to”
He was already sitting next to him.
“Mimmo fell asleep after like two minutes. Here”
Jack handed him the book, from what Alex understood it was about anatomy.
“I can’t do it if I don’t have someone listening to me, you know?”
“Not really, no. But it’s fine, I can listen. I promise I won’t fall asleep”
Jack’s smile at his answer was absolutely worth the next two hours listening to things he didn’t fully understand.
And all the hours that came after that day.
Alex soon realized that he didn’t need to do anything, when he wasn’t sure about something, Jack grabbed the book from his hands and checked handing the book back right after, when he wasn’t satisfied with the way he said something, he would repeat it over and over until he found the perfect expression, he didn’t really use the markers but he would held one to not move his hands too much.
As Jack studied with him keeping him company, Alex studied him, learning his little quirks.
He wouldn’t take a break if it wasn’t the other prompting it, Alex found that out the first time when after almost an hour Jack was still speaking non-stop. He didn’t drink coffee, it made him nervous, but he wasn’t surprised about that, Alex himself had only started regularly drinking it when he moved to Napoli thanks to Tommaso, he was kind of glad of that because he hadn’t really mastered the art of the moka. When he had to search something in the book, he would hold the marker with his teeth, with his lips parted, those times Alex couldn’t help but stare.
It was just natural that they started to spend time together also when Jack wasn’t studying.
They would walk together around Coverciano at night, before going to sleep, or to one of the rooms to party, getting to know each other even more. Jack would talk a lot about his University but Alex didn’t mind, it was nice hearing a teammate talk so passionately about something that wasn’t football, and he had really come to like listening to Jack’s voice.
He didn’t mind when Giovanni joined them, his presence made him feel a little less tongue-tied.
At first he didn’t get it, why he was so awkward around Jack.
Thinking about it now, he feels like an idiot for not realizing it earlier.
That’s basically how they spent their time together, with Jack talking and Alex listening.
Then they won the Euros and winning was great, holding the cup in his hands was amazing.
But what was even more amazing and greater had been holding Jack in his arms.
They had watched most of the matches together on the bench, sitting so close their tights were touching, neither of them doing anything to change it, if anything when one of them came back from warming up they would resume their position from earlier.
Being so close, it only came natural that the other would be the first person they embraced to celebrate after every goal they scored.
Each embrace was a little longer and a little tighter than the last and even though they hugged so many times, the feeling of Jack’s smaller body pressed against him and his warm breathing on his chest would never cease to make Alex shiver from head to toe and all he could do not to lose balance was to keep on holding him.
When they conceded for the first time a goal against Austria they both reached out to the other without looking, grabbing whatever they could find and holding tight. With a hand holding Jack’s shoulder and the other the iPad, Alex was the first to see Arnautović’s offside, and made sure everyone else did too.
When the goal was disallowed they celebrated as if they had scored themselves.
When Austria scored again during the extra time, they reached out again, this time finding each other’s hand.
They held hands until the referee whistled the end of the match.
They did it again every time they conceded.
During both penalty shootouts they were standing side by side among the others, holding each other’s hand.
Their victory was almost overwhelming. After running with the others towards Gigio, Alex would embrace anyone he met on the pitch until he found Jack again.
He still doesn’t know how long he held him, but it still feels like it wasn’t enough.
He realized Jack was trying to tell him something and even though he was practically yelling, Alex couldn’t hear him, it was the first time he didn’t listen to him.
He wished he had some time to spend with Jack after the victory, but those days when they had just come back to Italy had been even more chaotic.
And then it was over.
They all took their separate ways, went back home, then on vacation, and everyone was writing in their group chat basically every day but it wasn’t the same thing.
He thought about writing to Jack in private, he really did, but there was something holding him back so he would postpone it until it would have been even more embarrassing to write.
Alex told himself it was fine, they were going to see each other in September.
But they didn’t, not in the way he wanted.
He would have stayed in Coverciano even though the injury if he could, but the rules are the same for everyone, even for the only European champion that didn’t even play one minute.
So he went back to Napoli, for the first time with the heart a little heavier.
Then Jack scored his first goal with the national team and it was almost a brace and Alex was so proud of him, he couldn’t be happier for him, he also couldn’t be angrier for not being there, for not celebrating with him.
He was so mad at himself that in just a moment he got over his awkwardness to send him a message and that was the best impulsive choice he had made, and as a goalkeeper he knows everything about impulsiveness.
They never stopped messaging, talking about everything, their training sessions, the matches, Jack’s University, their friends, movies and tv shows, there wasn’t anything in their lives that they didn’t talk about, except maybe one thing.
And that’s how he finds himself sitting on a couch with Jack standing in front of him on the eve of another semi-final against Spain.
It could almost feel like four months ago.
But so many things have changed since that day.
Alex and Jack went from being strangers, to spending together all the free time they had, to not talking to each other at all, to messaging every day.
Jack had nailed his anatomy exam.
They won the Euros.
But there is one thing that stayed the same.
Sitting on that couch in a hotel room in Milan, with the rain outside banging on the windows, Alex still feels awkward staring at Jack slightly smirking standing in front of him.
Something else has changed, and that happened a lot of time ago, but neither could bring himself to say it before.
Jack sits next to him still smirking and it’s almost like a deja-vu.
“You never asked me again what I told you when we won”
“I felt like I knew. Maybe not in that moment, but when I though back at it, it was almost like I could actually hear you”
“Then why didn’t you do anything about it?”
Alex feels so ashamed he has to look away from Jack’s hurt expression.
“I was scared. Because what if I were wrong? And you didn’t actually say what I thought?”
Jack presses a hand on his cheek and Alex can only close his eyes and lean into that touch, finally.
Jack gives him a moment, then pushes his face in his direction again, making him look into his eyes.
“Do you really not realize that there’s only one thing that I wanted to tell you at that moment? That I always want to tell you?”
“I do. But that idea scared me even more”
Jack looks confused and hurt and sad all at the same moment and tries to retract his hand but Alex is faster, keeping it in place.
“I am- I was scared at the idea that you could love me because I never felt like this for anyone, not a boy, not a girl, no one. Ever. And I’m still scared of messing it up because I don’t know what to do, or how to act. But I love you Jack. And I really want to try to make things work”
Jack is still looking at him with that confused expression on his face, not daring to move a muscle.
“Please tell me I didn’t misinterpret everything. Tell me that that’s the thing you told me after the final, that you love me”
Alex feels desperate, he’s almost pleading at this point.
Then Jack smiles at him and he knows it was all worth it.
But he also does something he probably should have expected, but really didn’t.
Because he puts his other hand on his cheek so he’s holding his face and kisses him.
And it’s not the first kiss Alex has had, but it’s the first with a person that he loves and cares about and wants to make feel safe whenever is in his arms.
So he holds Jack even tighter while they kiss and grab every part of the other that they can reach, and Jack moves so that he’s straddling his lap and Alex can hold him even closer to his chest.
“What I said-”
Jack has to stop to reach for air and they’re both smiling while Alex is caressing his back with one hand and smoothing his hair with the other.
“What I said was Thank you for your time. I loved every second. I loved you every second ”.